


The Ache (A Study In)

by chickenwinginit



Category: Game Grumps, Starbomb (Band)
Genre: Angst, First Kiss, M/M, Mutual Masturbation, NSFW, Secret Crush, dick suckin, in which arin fucks up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-26
Updated: 2016-03-02
Packaged: 2018-05-23 06:52:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6108568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chickenwinginit/pseuds/chickenwinginit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dan has a habit of giving brief, polite farewell kisses. They don't mean anything, really. That's what's driving Arin crazy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Angst City, Bitch

**Author's Note:**

> This fic did surprisingly well on tumblr and a lot of people asked for a continuation, so I thought I'd do that and archive the whole of it here! Will you get a happy ending? Whooo knows? OOOooooOOooOoo~
> 
> Thank you for reading!! Kiss

Dan does– does, this, this thing, see, that’s been driving Arin crazy. He knows he doesn’t mean it, doesn’t realize. But every time their lips touch in that deft, fleeting farewell he falls that much more in love.  
  
How many people give goodbye kisses anymore? Mothers to their children, maybe, and vice versa. Family. Arin’s heart gives an aching shudder.  
Dan doesn’t do it with everybody, sure– not new friends or business partners or fans, or anything like that. But the Grumps? Holly, Kati, their buddies? _Him_? No problem.

  
The first time it happened was after their first Grump session together. They wound down the game and ended in fits of giggles, the giddy in the air and their laughs and buzzing under their skin. Arin chalked down the capture times, still chuckling to himself, and set everything up for Barry. Dan was whistling something jaunty and proud– a fitting theme. When he turned around he had his keys around his ring finger, was twirling them and following the spin with his eyes. It was late. Arin grinned.  
  
“Dude, I’d say that was a killer debut. Fan’s are gonna love you.”  
  
Dan laughed, eyes dancing. “After the initial barn fire, you mean?”  
  
“Well, yeah. But you’ll capture a few hearts right off the bat. I’m sure of it.”  
  
“Aw, thanks, man,” Dan says, as if he needs to be modest, “well, I’m beat. When will the episode be up?”  
  
“Mmm, couple weeks, maybe? I’ll text you!”  
  
They grin at one another. “Thanks, Arin.”  
  
And then it happened. That crazy, rapturous moment.  
  
Dan crossed the room in two easy strides and hugged Arin, slapping his back hard and loud as if they’d just finished a game of catch. “See ya, dude,” he said, and then their lips met.  
  
It was nothing romantic. Arin knows that. It was a quick one at the corner of his mouth, barely a second long, but it _happened_ and Arin had felt their scruff rubbing together, had felt his friend’s warm chapness. Had felt something cold drop deep inside of him and echo in the pit of his stomach.  
  
Just like that, it was over and Dan was out the door, waving a lazy hand his way in parting. Struck dumb, Arin tried to say something, like “what the fuck?” or “goodbye,” but he was just left gaping, paralyzed against a creeping dread.

  
He deals with it fairly well now. Dan doesn’t do it every time they come together and apart, but on the times that it matters: after a particularly successful session, maybe; before they leave on business. Every time before he goes, though, Arin steels himself, wondering if it’ll happen, if he’ll have to fight that volatile something squirming all around him whenever Dan draws near, whenever he’s so close that he can breathe in his aftershave and take it home with him to dream about. Restlessly.  
  
Arin didn’t fall in love with Dan right off the bat. That’s something he’s gotta make clear. He fought it first– hard. At first he thought that maybe he was just flattered, just liked the idea of being liked back, but then he ended up renting out so much head-space to Dan, spending so much time replaying his laugh, the highs and lows of it, the places where it screeched into squeaking giggles, that he’d feel like a fool if he continued to lie to himself. He still feels like a fool, now, but at least he’s an honest one. At least he’s got that.    
  
The question still stands, though: _what the fuck should he do?_  
  
Maybe he could tell Dan that those chaste kisses feel like an invasion of space, kinda pop his bubble a little bit. He could say yeah, he’s a touchy guy, but ‘I’ve just got this thing, man.’  
  
Maybe he could tell him the truth.  
  
He nearly smacks himself upside the head. No. _No_.  
  
He’s not saying it in the cheesy movie way when he says it’s not gonna happen. Not in the way that flustered heterosexual couples make circles around one another because 'no, she _couldn’t_ ’ or 'me? but I’m just a simple, small town girl!’ It couldn’t happen in the real way, in the way that sits solid and concrete in his stomach. The way that he doesn’t want to believe but does anyway because it’s just not in Dan’s eyes, man– it’s just not there.

But this is a study in desperation, in 'anyway’s’. This is a study in the ache being too much. A study in being overtaken.  
  
  
It happens on the Fourth of July. Fucking Independence Day.  
  
The legality of fireworks in California is ambiguous at worst and just legal enough at best. That’s enough for Ross and Barry to purchase a fair amount of them and take the crew to the highest, emptiest hill they can find– there’s a group of teens there with fireworks of their own but the more the merrier, they say. Dan says he hopes this is the merriest it gets.  
  
It’s always the hardest when there is joy. To love someone in a bad mood, or even a lukewarm one, there’s solid ground to stand on. Now, he won’t call sadness rationality, he’s not that bitter, but he wouldn’t hesitate to call happiness volatile– that much is a truth, if only a hard one.  
  
Arin’s got a good life, and it’s moments like these, when color is literally exploding in the darkness, and there are stars, and all of his best friends are cheering, that drives that home. The appreciation makes him feel teary, and then Dan throws an arm over his shoulder and the elation makes him feel weightless. He could fly right up and catch those fireworks in his palm if he wanted to.  
  
But in that happy is the ache. That’s the price of love. It will always ache, and when you are happy it will be the hardest.  
Arin tries –he really does– to lose the ache in the crowd tonight. He dances with Suzy, he howls at the fireworks with Brian and Ross, he laughs and laughs and tries so hard to laugh the hurt off. He owes Dan that– it shouldn’t wound him to look his friend full in the face when he’s speaking to him, to joke with him and feel it one hundred percent.  
  
This is a study in being overtaken.  
  
Everyone starts to pack up and pile into their cars a little past midnight. He sits in the back of Danny’s car with Ross. The plan is to drive back to the Grump space where the two are parked and split up from there. “I think I left my keys in the recording room, anyway,” Dan says, assuring them both it’s no problem.  
  
And so they ride back and talk about the British, cause hey, it’s Independence Day, and Ross knows so much less than he should. “It was in 1776,” Arin snarks in response to Ross’s guess of 1850, “dude, how do you even have your green card?”  
  
When they get back to the Grump space Ross is _out_ , man, exhausted and planning to drink a little with Holly when he gets home. Arin is just about on his way when Dan calls out, “Shit, dude, do you have the key to the office? I think I forgot mine.”  
  
Arin opens the door and files in slowly after Dan, working hard to fight back the thoughts that stir from the serendipity of ending up alone in a dark office with him after a party– the cliche of it.  
  
“Those kids were actually pretty cool, huh?” Dan asks as he searches for his wallet, “I kinda thought they’d put a damper on the whole thing, but man, they were funny.”  
  
“Didn’t one of them say he liked Rush?” Arin asks absentmindedly.  
  
“Yeah!” Dan is over the moon. “When he saw my shirt.”  
  
“Cool shit, dude.”  
  
Dan grins. “I love hangin’ out with you guys. Man, California nights make me feel alive– the weather, I mean. It’s always so warm and the breeze makes you appreciate every little thing. And with you guys? It’s almost too much, sometimes.”  
  
Arin gets it. He realizes there can be good aches, too. He’ll need to think on that.  
  
Dan finally finds his wallet wedged between the couch cushions and pops back to his full height smiling crookedly. “I guess this is goodnight,” he says, wry and warm at the same time.  
  
“Indeed,” Arin answers back, a little hollowly.  
  
He comes closer and Arin wants to groan and plead, pathetic, 'please, not tonight, I don’t think I can–’ but Dan’s legs are so fucking long and he closes the distance between the some fast and pulls away even faster, the kiss he leaves on his lips like a ghost, like something more he has to mourn.  
  
Well, he doesn’t want to mourn. All of the sudden Arin grabs Dan by the shirt collar and hauls him back into the kiss. He kisses him hot and fire-y, edging on reckless fury in his passion. Moving his mouth desperately against Dan’s quivering lips, wanting more, more goddammit, because somewhere deep inside he knows he’ll never have this again. What will become of him? Of Dan?  
  
That’s the thought that gets him to rocket back, spewing apologies so desperately he can barely breathe as he backs himself against the wall, tripping over himself and his words, chest heaving. He can’t tell if he wants to vomit or cry or both, and the ache is something putrid now, something mocking him; mocking his heinousness.  
  
“I’m so fucking sorry.”  
  
Dan stares, thunderstruck, and it’s like neither of them will ever see fireworks again.


	2. The Resolution

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We learn. We love. We are all the better for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has my first ever attempt at porn. I literally looked up how to suck dick for this. Judge me tender. 
> 
> Seriously though- this was so, so much fun to write and I think I learned and improved a lot just in making it. This small series has actually brought some of the nicest responses I've ever received about my writing, and it's made me all the more determined to stick with it and hopefully realize a few dreams with this love of mine. 
> 
> That being said, please enjoy this. It was a labor of love and I'm so happy to turn it out to you. :)

Arin thinks he sees Dan quaking a little. Maybe it's just his vision, hazy and spinning out. He tries to breathe. Pause the panic. When he finally stops spewing apologies there is a silence-- Dan wets his lips to speak and tension pools into the room anew.

 "Ar, listen, man," he begins, slowly, like he might break him, "I can't do this right now. Can you give me time to just... just go home and think? I'll come back, I promise, but right now I need--"

 Arin delays his world's collapse long enough to assure him. His voice is dry and strained, half alive and fighting to keep steady. "Dan," it comes out breathless. "Dan. Of course. I'm sorry."

 "Do you, fuck, need me to call someone? I could get Barry over here, or Suzy or--"  
  
"No. Dan. No, it's... it's fine. Just-- I'm gonna head home, too. I'm sorry."  
  
Dan's nod is curt. He turns to leave, but slowly, his head over his shoulder watching Arin as if keeping him in his sights will stop him falling apart. "Um, goodbye, then."

 "'Night."

 He leaves, and then it is a matter of moving his legs, of climbing into his car and driving it: to the right destination, no less. Then it is mindlessly trudging home and collapsing into bed and shrieking more apologies still into his pillow.

\---

Dan doesn't kiss people goodbye after that, and Arin feels like he has stolen something from him. The ache is dual-sided now, one part love and one part guilt. One whole both, thoroughly mixed.

 But Dan keeps his word. For several days there is silence, and then a text. 'Can we talk?'

 It goes how you would expect it: Dan wants to stay friends. 'I love you, man, seriously, just not, not, y'know, not that way.' He tells Arin he doesn't want to lose him to this. Arin agrees, though at the time he feels like he is more ache than self, like he is already lost. It takes time to progress past the hurt. Some days all it takes is Danny's face on an instagram post to bring him to tears, some days they're recording and he will say his name, "Arin," in just the wrong way and he will need to bow out and leave-- scrapping entire episodes.

 But time is merciful. Time heals, or at least overrides.

 On the week of his birthday Dan takes him out to dinner, one-on-one. By now things have leveled between them, and they can laugh again like they used to, can make the same stupid jokes about dicks and Arin's not-quite-heterosexuality without anything feeling amiss or dangerous. Dan does not give anymore goodbye kisses, but that night, at dinner, Arin thinks that maybe he will be okay.

 The ache is still there, of course, but it is shier, now— it bows to Arin's fierce determination to do right by Dan. To hold on to his friend. Every night out feels like a battle won, now, and every laugh he gets out of him— he prides himself on that willpower, on his ability to treasure what he has with Dan and not disappear into what he has lost.  
  
It’s interesting, Arin will think later, how good a bad situation can seem once it is threatened. Like when he was little, and he and his brother would fight and end up pissing off their parents. Their dad would explode and yell, and he and Nate would huddle in their room discussing plans to placate him; maybe swap chagrin at the sharpness, the effectiveness of his admonishments. They felt closest then. It’s like that now, with him and Dan. What used to make him ache is now precious.   
  
\---   
  
Dan, on the other hand, is beginning to change. He doesn’t give goodbye kisses anymore. He feels guilty a lot— like he’s broken something. He takes longer glances at Arin, drinks him in, doesn’t understand it. Tries to. Tries hard and hurts over it.   
  
Surprisingly enough, Dan didn’t grow up all that scared of homosexuality. Avi had always been a pretty zen guy; believed that the core of a person was more important than who they fucked or what they looked like. He grew up on that, so when guys would mock him and call him gay in high school he wouldn’t really sweat it, y’know? At least they hadn’t called him stupid, or said his singing was bad.   
  
Thus it’s not the prospect of liking men that gets him all bendy, but moreover the newness of it. Arin is not like the girls he has dated. He is soft too, sure, but over coarse hair and muscle; and he has never caressed stubble or the outcroppings of bicep before. So how could this be— _that?_ What he’s felt before for hourglass hips and painted mouths, sloping lashes and nails?   
  
Sometimes Dan forgets that beyond good there is great.   
  
\---   
  
Dan and Arin are both on the precipice of something.   
  
They are at Arin’s place one night: practicing, worrying. Arin’s got an audition for a voice acting gig the morning after and he’s trying out his bit on Dan. Dan doesn’t know much about voice acting, the art of it, so his advice is menial: “I feel like, with the voice you give this character, his personality would be… looser. Does that make sense?”   
  
“No.”   
  
“Fuck, um. Like. He talks slow and easy but in this script of yours he’s anxious. So the humor doesn’t feel as natural?”   
  
“So… should I change the script or the voice?”   
  
Dan is quick to urgency. “No, no! I’m not saying you need to re-wire anything, dude. Like, he can be both. Just don’t, like, uhm, make either a gimmick, y’know?”   
  
“You mean, uh…” Arin taps a pencil to his lips thoughtfully, “I just need to balance ‘im out a bit?”   
  
The clarification comes as a blessing. “Yes! Fuck, yes! God, sorry, I couldn’t figure out how to say it.”   
  
Arin’s grin splinters wide across his cheeks. “You’re fine, man!” He pencils something down. “That actually leaves me room to make a few more jokes I thought’d be out of place.”   
  
“Yeah? You wanna try ‘em out on me?”   
  
“Nah, dude. I’m beat, and I think I’ve got this down now. What you said actually helped me fit the last few pieces into place— thanks.”   
  
Dan falls back on the couch and smiles big. “Dude, I’m glad I could do anything at all,” he says, looking Arin in the eye.   
  
Arin’s face softens —falling away from work mode— and he settles down beside him. He tucks his legs under him to get more comfy and curls onto his side, facing Dan like a crescent. “I’m really excited for this,” he tells him, softly.   
  
“And you should be.” Dan claps him on the shoulder. “You know that whenever I give advice, it’s only to make you better than you already are, right? You’re already rockin’ it from the get-go. In fact, you could’ve had this without me.”   
  
“Aw, dude,” Arin coos, pink rising to his cheeks, “thank you. That really… That means a lot to me.”   
  
Dan feels like he can’t love enough in moments like these. These kindsa moods are his favorites— the sappy, saccharine ones; everyone’s happy and warm and the world just seems brighter. With Ar close to him, and the mood set; with his audition solidified and pink in his cheeks and his smile kind and sloping, it is less new for Dan to realize that he might just really like this guy. He is not long hair and tits and what he usually likes in a girl, but he is Arin, and that in and of itself kind of makes enough sense. Doesn’t it? _‘Fuck it,’_ he thinks. He’s gonna use the fuck-it adjustment and find out.   
  
“Alright,” Dan says, stretching, “well, we should both be getting ready to get some sleep. You’ve got shit to do tomorrow and I can’t function on less than five hours.” With a tired sigh and more stretching, he stands up and holds a hand out to Arin, “see you tomorrow?”   
  
Arin takes it and he pulls him up; together they make their way towards the door so he can see Dan out. “Tomorrow. I’ll be sure to tell ya how it went. Thanks again, man.”   
  
“Not a problem, bud.”   
  
And again he leans in and kisses him, softly. It is full on the lips this time and contemplative: brief still, yes, but he is able to get a good sense of Arin, the smell and taste of him. He is exactly what he expected; whole and sturdy and enveloping, with a little cheek. A small warmth.   


Arin, at first, is wholly shocked, and then pleased: he thought Dan did not give goodbye kisses anymore. When Dan pulls away he breathes deep, wills away the ghost, and raises his hand in a small, lazy wave. Smiles, even. “Goodnight.”   
  
Dan is sure of something. Arin has fought the ache. They are both on the precipice.   
  
“Goodnight. Be seeing you.”   
  
\---   
  
At half past ten Dan reenters the Grump room with a can of sprite and a mission. He’s been trying to figure out how to do this since he figured out he wanted to at Arin’s place a couple days ago, but all of his brainstorming has been wasted on the hard reality of it— that there’s not much more to do than sit down and tell him.   
  
So when he plunks down next to Arin on the couch, feeling gangly and awkward like he hasn’t since high school, like his limbs are too far away from him and out of his control, in the way, he tries not to psyche himself out before he can say the words. “Ar, I need to talk to you.”   
  
The phrase sends Arin back, reigniting an aged, bitter taste in his mouth. He smacks his lips, nervous. “Ah, okay,” he says, hesitantly, “about?”   
  
“Well…” Dan doesn’t know how to do this part. He feels like kind of a prick; like he’s playing with his friend’s emotions, dredging this shit up after it took so much of them both to bury it. It’s like a scar on the back of his hand. He clenches his fists to see if it’ll show up, white on his knuckles. It doesn’t, and he’s almost disappointed.   
  
He looks up. Arin is owlish now, awaiting the blow. Flinching away from it.   
  
“Listen,” Dan says, turning towards him and pulling his ankles criss-cross into his lap. “I’m scared to say this because I’m going to sound like a jerk. Like, I made you think one thing for so long, and now I’m hitting you over the head with the other…”   
  
Arin’s voice comes out waifish. “You’re not leaving, are you?”   
  
“No, no! Fuck. God no. Arin, I just think that I like, y’know, like you too. If you still do. Fuck. Is that okay?”   
  
He watches Arin’s face, trying to figure out if the world’s stopped for him. But he doesn’t know that his first response is denial— confusion, even. Why the lie? Where’s the punchline? Dan doesn’t do this, Arin thinks; he doesn’t bring up old hurts and joke about them. Dan has always been gentle with the ghosts he’s mourned, has never poked or prodded at the vestiges for fear of burning him. But there was that goodbye kiss the other day. The flames in it. Arin feels bewilderment shaking the firs away from the core of him.   
  
He meets Dan’s gaze, a bare trunk. “What?” He croaks. He is hoarse. Tentative.   
  
Dan reaches out and puts his hand over Arin’s, and it’s like they’re playing Ouija together, summoning something.   
  
“That night,” he begins, “months ago. When you kissed me. Back then, I wasn’t ready. But what I’m trying to say is that now I am. That tonight I would’ve… that I would’ve kissed back.”   
  
While he watches, hopeful, Arin’s eyes fill with tears. ‘I mean, fuck,’ Arin thinks, ‘what else could he have expected?’   
  
Telling him something he never thought he’d get to hear. A dream he’d been denying, been digging a deeper and deeper grave for ever since Independence Day. He thought he’d come to terms with that death, but now it’s ripping through him all over again. He wipes at his eyes with the backs of his wrists, trying to rub away the tears and the ache, but they just keep coming— in the best possible, most cleansing way.   
  
And Dan _freaks._ “Arin,” he whispers, pleadingly, gripping him tight with both hands at the shoulders. About to shake him.“Don’t cry, please. Please don’t cry. I’m sorry, fuck, I’m so fucking—”   
  
_“Dan,”_ Arin says in a sob. “You’d kiss me?”   
  
“I-I— Uh, y-yeah, shit, I—”   
  
“Then can you, just, _please_ —”   
  
So he does. Urgently, in the most not-brief way. With Arin’s old fire and fury. Their lips meet flush, finally with the same intent. And, holy fuck, it is the antithesis of goodbye: in fact, Arin ends up in Dan’s lap trying to get closer, digging his fingers desperately into him, and Dan has his hand cupping the nape of his neck, fingers curling, blissful, into the hairs there. Their chests feel like one whole warmth pressed up against each other, exploding and overwhelming and soft. The gentle slip of Dan’s flannel against Arin’s loose v-neck is the best bit, almost —well, they’re all the best bits— but it stands out to them because it is so domestic, so familiar. Clean laundry and a fast-blooming love.   
  
Arin is the first to rip away for breath. Between pants, he laughs, ethereal and amazed. “You fucking _meant_ it, dude—”   
  
“I wouldn’t lie!”   
  
“I know!” Arin almost tears up again. “I just, oh my god, I never thought—”   
  
Dan cups his face. He looks deep into him. “Thought…?”   
  
Arin closes his eyes and connects their foreheads; he lets the truth out in gasp, the last breath of air that he has held secret. “Thought that you’d want this as much as I do.”     
  
It doesn’t have to, but that breaks Dan’s heart anyway. “I know. I know.”   
  
“Don’t—,” he hiccups a bit, “don’t be sorry, man. That was then. This is now.”   
  
Arin is still in Dan’s lap. Dan leans back to separate them a bit, holding Ar at arm’s length now so he can look at him again. _Fuck it._ “Arin, can I tell you something?”   
  
“Mm?”   
  
“I am fighting back the world’s biggest fucking boner right now.”   
  
Arin’s whole body heaves in a snort, watery as it may be. “I know. You’re not doing a very good job.”   
  
Dan smirks, embarrassed, and whispers a curse, but then Arin’s hand falls from his elbow and snakes towards his thigh. He hisses.   
  
“Is this okay?” Arin asks, pausing for an answer.   
  
“Arin, remember? I want this as much as you do.”   
  
Those words hit him in a very particular way. “Fuck,” he says, breathily, “okay.”   
  
He gets up then and Dan is almost shocked, almost fearful that somehow the moment is coming to an end. But then Arin is just shucking off his pants, looking at him quizzically like this is probably a move he should be making too. Understanding, Dan rises and follows his lead.   
  
Dan stands after he has finished tearing his ankle out of the leg of his jeans and when he is at his full height there is Arin—threading his fingers into the hair at the base of his skull and pulling him roughly into an otherwise gentle kiss. Arin is hesitant to go about this any way but delicately, and it shows in the way that he takes Dan’s lower lip between his like it is something like glass, or porcelain— something breakable.   
  
He nibbles soft, and sucks it in a slow rhythm, and soon Dan is overflowing with too much passion to do this shit tenderly. He grabs at Arin’s chin and deepens the kiss, overtaking it and using his tongue to shove at the barrier of his teeth. Arin gets the message quickly and opens for him to enter; suddenly his mouth is full of that new, throbbing heat and he moans, long and languid, as Dan begins to slide along the insides of his cheeks.     
  
Arin is happy to let Dan take direction away from him, to just go along with this new electricity that he has so long craved. He never thought it would come, and he’s rendered kind of shocked now that it’s happening: he’s stiff and Dan understands and makes quick work of soothing him, running his hands down his neck, shoulders, hips— rubbing slow circles there with his thumbs. Arin nearly coos at the love in it, the kindness of the touch.   
  
There is also the fire. As he’s kissing him, Dan takes a step back towards the couch, leading Arin over in a slow sort of dance; he thinks of the tango and arches his chest languidly against Dan’s, just ‘cause, for the novelty of it. The soft circles at his hips turn into a vice grip, and Dan pulls him onto the couch and on top of him with his legs spread over his knees. He whimpers merely at the sight of the position: himself hanging over Dan, his breaths heavy puffs against his chest and an obvious tent in his boxers.   
  
His boxers.   
  
“Can I—?”   
  
Dan licks his lips and nods, and Arin reaches down to press his thumb to his head through the fabric. A circle of wetness immediately surfaces and Dan is downright _musical_ . Hearing him, Arin abandons any and all of his plans to tease, instead simply folding his underwear down past his pelvis, bunching them up at the thighs so that his erection can spring free. He tries not to marvel; blushes burgundy when he fails.   
  
Dan notices and purrs his approval, a small smirk playing at his lips. “You good?” He asks, teasingly.   
  
Arin does not respond— he is too breathless, too ‘holy shit, I cannot believe this is happening.’ He responds merely by rutting against Dan with a guttural groan, then immediately grasping him at the base and taking him into his mouth. Dan gasp-moans in surprise, his body tensing, pulling inwards —a defense mechanism— before pooling out against the cushions once more.   _“Arin,”_ he hisses, in surprise and approval, the feel of Arin’s lips and Arin’s heat even better without the warning.   
  
Arin hums in reply, hollows his cheeks and swallows to get some spit going. Dan all but cries out at the action and Arin uses his tongue to coat his dick liberally in his spit, licking messily along the shaft so that the pleasure explodes in tiny, haphazard bursts behind Dan’s eyes: there and gone and _oh fuck, there_ and gone again.   
  
He’s able to get in a rhythm then, sucking up to the head and teasing the slit there, popping off to lick stripes from where his hand is gripping him and up to the tip. Dan throws his head back in near-surrender when he starts to take in the whole length of him, working his dick down his throat and sucking noisily so that he can feel the walls of his esophagus close around it. Desperately, hands shaking, Dan reaches down and entwines his fingers with the baby-hairs at the front of Arin’s scalp. He tugs gently, subtly, to get the man’s attention: Arin raises his eyes so that their gazes meet and Dan can’t help but stare, open-mouthed at the beauty there. He begins to say it, voice broken and airy, “A-Ar, you’re so…” but he’s cut off when the fist starts finally working the base of his cock, twisting and trailing gently upwards. Again, he screams: _musical,_ Arin thinks.   
  
Arin’s fist and his mouth together is almost unbearable, and it is when Dan starts to clench, feeling that powerful thing, that feeling he cannot explain but that he _needs,_ that he tugs sharply at Arin’s hair; cruel, almost. Arin yelps in pain around his cock and removes himself quickly. His eyes spell fear, and he looks at Dan with a terrible mix of lust and concern.   
  
“Sorry,” Dan pants, getting his bearings. He reaches around to cup Arin’s ass and drag him closer. “I just— didn’t wanna, heh, go without ya…”   
  
Addled and nearly brainless, Arin can only watch as Dan reaches into his boxers and takes out his own dick, wrapping his hand around it and working it delicately as he prepares.   
  
Arin responds to the touch instantly. “Oh— oh my god,” he says, liquid as his precome pools and spills over in between Dan’s fingers. “Dan… Dan—”   
  
“Shh,” he responds, using his free hand to guide Arin’s head to his shoulder. He buries it there instinctively, hands clenching as Dan begins to set a fast pace. “I’ve got you,” he coos as he jacks him off.   
  
But he’s still not willing to leave Dan unattended. “Lemme—” Drowsily, he tries to work through the patchwork of their criss-crossing arms to grasp at his cock again, but Dan just brushes him off and shushes him with strings of sugar: “I want to take care of you, you deserve this, baby.”   
  
He groans as his arousal starts to peak. Panicked, frustrated, he bites at Dan’s shoulder and hisses “at least— fuckin’, both of us—”   
  
“Shit, you’re right.” Somehow against the building chaos of orgasm Dan chuckles, and shifts to wrap his fingers around his own dick, waiting a minute then to keep Arin on edge before continuing to pump them.   
  
“Better?” He asks.   
  
Arin’s moan is drivel. Pooling desperation; his voice practically liquid.   
  
“God you’re s-so… so— fucking, Arin, I love you—”   
  
With the confession Dan gives a few last, violent pumps and they both come in near unison. Arin doesn’t know what to focus on between the exploding pleasure and the red hot affection: it all turns to white behind his eyes as he furrows his brow and digs deeper into Dan, wrenching an arm free and throwing it around his shoulder in a crushing hug.   
  
When they come down they are disgusting; and that’s to put it lightly. The air is heavy and their bodies slick with sweat and jizz and Dan breaks the world turning inside Arin’s head with a chuckle, goofy and nonchalant in just the way he’d fallen in love with _(Love. Love, holy shit they’re in love—?)_ “Eww,” he groans, and for the first to Arin breaks his reverie to laugh.   
  
“You’re fucking ridiculous,” he says, and means it. “But… I love you.”   
  
“And I love you.”   
  
And that is when the ache flickers and disappears— when the curse breaks and the princess is set free. Realization, actualization, joy rush through him and for the first time Arin is confident that he has nothing left to bury.   
  
“And you love me.”   


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Comments are love, just to let you know;p
> 
> Find me on tumblr at: chickenwinginit.tumblr.com


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